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Noah Adams

Noah Adams, long-time co-host of NPR's All Things Considered, brings more than three decades of radio experience to his current job as a contributing correspondent for NPR's National Desk., focusing on the low-wage workforce, farm issues, and the Katrina aftermath. Now based in Ohio, he travels extensively for his reporting assignments, a position he's held since 2003.

Adams' career in radio began in 1962 at WIRO in Ironton, Ohio, across the river from his native Ashland, Kentucky. He was a "good music" DJ on the morning shift, and played rock and roll on Sandman's Serenade from 9 p.m. to midnight. Between shifts, he broadcasted everything from basketball games to sock hops. From 1963 to 1965, Adams was on the air from WCMI (Ashland), WSAZ (Huntington, W. Va.) and WCYB (Bristol, Va.).

After other radio work in Georgia and Kentucky, Adams left broadcasting and spent six years working at various jobs, including at a construction company, an automobile dealership and an advertising agency.

In 1971, Adam discovered public radio at WBKY, the University of Kentucky's station in Lexington. He began as a volunteer rock and roll announcer but soon became involved in other projects, including documentaries and a weekly bluegrass show. Three years later he joined the staff full-time as host of a morning news and music program.

Adams came to NPR in 1975 where he worked behind the scenes editing and writing for the next three years. He became co-host of the weekend edition of All Things Considered in 1978 and in September 1982, Adams was named weekday co-host, joining Susan Stamberg.

During 1988, Adams left NPR for one year to host Minnesota Public Radio's Good Evening, a weekly show that blended music with storytelling. He returned to All Things Considered in February 1989.

Over the years Adams has often reported from overseas: he covered the Christmas Eve uprising against the Ceasescu government in Romania, and his work from Serbia was honored by the Overseas Press Club in 1994. His writing and narration of the 1981 documentary "Father Cares: The Last of Jonestown," earned Adams a Prix Italia, the Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Award and the Major Armstrong Award.

A collection of Adams' essays from Good Evening, entitled Saint Croix Notes: River Morning, Radio Nights (W.W. Norton) was printed in 1990. Two years later, Adams' second book, Noah Adams on All Things Considered: A Radio Journal (W.W. Norton), was published. Piano Lessons: Music, Love and True Adventures (Delacore), Adams next book was finished in 1996, and Far Appalachia: Following the New River North, in 2000. The Flyers: in Search of Wilbur and Orville Wright (Crown) was published in 2004. Most recently Adams co-wrote This is NPR: The First Forty Years (Chronicle Books), to be released in November 2010.

Adams lives in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where his wife, Neenah Ellis, is the general manager of NPR member station WYSO.

Here's what might have sounded like a pretty shaky business plan for a neighborhood pizza cafe: "We'll only be open one day a week. Won't do any advertising. No prices on the menus. We'll serve mostly what we grow in the garden – and no pepperoni. And we'll look on this work as an 'experiment of faith.'"

That's what Erin and Robert Lockridge said two years ago, when they decided to open a pizza place called Moriah Pie in Norwood, a small town part of greater Cincinnati.

This story began in 2012 while I was working on a story in Iowa. I was taking pictures on a foggy afternoon and saw a young girl on a blue bicycle, a newspaper bag slung across her shoulder. She stopped and held up a copy of The Daily Times Herald.

These days, most newspapers are delivered by fast-moving adults driving vans and trucks. I guess I didn't know that kids still had paper routes, anywhere.

Saturday marks the 140th Run for the Roses: the Kentucky Derby. Great horses, great hats — but where's the Pappy Van Winkle bourbon for the mint juleps?

Last October, more than 200 bottles of the prized spirit were stolen right out of the distillery in Frankfort, Ky. The county sheriff believes it was an inside job, and a $10,000 reward remains on offer.

The Steinway piano company has a new owner. This fall, the investment firm Paulson & Co. — led by billionaire John Paulson — spent about $500 million and bought all of Steinway & Sons, the venerated piano maker.

The deal includes a foundry in Springfield, Ohio, where the Steinway pianos are born in fire.

The O.S. Kelly Foundry has been making Steinway's plates since 1938. The plate is the cast-iron heart of a piano: It holds the steel wire strings with 40,000 pounds of tension, the company says. It allows vibrations to arise in a concert hall as music.